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In January, 2010, I created a new kata. The kata is ultra-modern. I regularly practice it. The kata is also highly susceptible to bunkai (analysis). What is the name of this kata? It is blogging. The result is this weblog, this kata.

Why do I consider this blog a kata? The simple answer is that it is dynamic and always the result of karate training, particularly kata training. After more than four decades, I know that karate-do is an on-going process of discovery. This process of discovery and rediscovery is the source of the words that fall into cyber space. Each word represents at least one droplet of sweat, one lost moment of sleep as a thought invades my consciousness and lost pencil lead as I scramble to write down thought that occur to me during training. As the process is fluid and never truly complete, all can never truly be written; many remain unwritten and pending discovery.

It is utterly impossible for me to write about the subjects of this blog while sitting idly at the computer. There must be daily, even hourly, kata training. I regularly take a ten to fifteen minute “kata-break” from my work routine.

I always have a clipboard loaded with blank paper and index cards, a voice recorder and sometimes, even my laptop handy. As kata training is for the sake of training and not writing, I do not develop an idea during such sessions. Rather, I simply spontaneously record something that I may notice about a particular kata or an idea that may simply pop into my mind. These notations are either a few words or a sentence or two. After the session, I pin the index card to a large cork board for future development.

There are times when a few lines on a notecard will not suffice. There are training sessions that are particularly fruitful. After these sessions, words flow from me like the sweat on my brow. When that happens, I sit at my laptop, still in my gi (karate uniform) and let the words flow. Like a perfect moment of Zanshin (remaining mind) clarity, the resulting article remains an integral part of my karate-do experience.

In addition to creating this kata-blg, here is a kata I created decades ago to fulfill my requirement for the rank of Yon-dan (4th degree black belt). I call it Nami-Kiribi (“Cutting-Wave”) Kata.

In closing, I remain, practicing my traditional kata and the kata that is this blog,